But, de­spite these set­backs, there seems to be hope for the na­ture-film genre and it seems that view­ers will not be de­terred even by high prices.

At the re­cent fes­ti­val, tick­ets were priced at 119 yuan per per­son, al­most dou­ble what you would pay for a reg­u­lar film on­line. But most of the seats were sold out, ac­cord­ing to the ticket-sale agency Ge­wara.com.

Mean­while, star power is used to pro­mote the fes­ti­val and to push the con­ser­va­tion mes­sage.

Hong Kong singer-ac­tress Karen Mok teamed up with top mu­sic pro­ducer Zhang Yadong to drum up pub­lic­ity for the fes­ti­val in down­town Bei­jing.

“I be­lieve to­day no one will starve if they do not eat a wild an­i­mal, and nei­ther will they freeze and die if they don’t wear an­i­mal fur,” saysMok.

The star be­gan to take part in na­ture and wildlife con­ser­va­tion cam­paigns after she read a re­port about “bile bears” — which are kept in cap­tiv­ity to har­vest their bile — more than 10 years ago.

She hopes her cam­paigns will boost pub­lic aware­ness about pro­tect­ing na­ture and wildlife, while Zhang hopes the gov­ern­ment will ex­tend even more sup­port than it does now when it comes to en­vi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion.